


Dead Men Walking

by dunkelgrau



Category: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunkelgrau/pseuds/dunkelgrau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I owe this text to two different requests.<br/>The first one was to write an alternative version of the interrogation scene - one of my friends begged for the slight BDSM description, - and add the parts that weren't in the prologue, e.g.:<br/>1. Answer the question, why the Hell Roche is so OK with helping Geralt.<br/>2. Develop the grim humour of the prologue dialogues (the one about knees and princes xD).<br/>3. Take a sneak peek at healing the witcher's wounds process.<br/>The second one was to translate that from Russian.</p><p>I did both, as you can see...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Men Walking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Dawner](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Dawner).



> THE GAME SAYS: _During the prologue, Geralt is interrogated in a prison of the kingdom of Temeria by Vernon Roche, the commander of a group of Temerian special forces known as the Blue Stripes, regarding the assassination of the king of Temeria, King Foltest. Geralt recounts the events leading up to Foltest's death, during which he acted as Foltest's bodyguard. (...) After hearing Geralt's confessions, Roche decides on Geralt's innocence and aids him in escaping the prison. The two, along with Triss Merigold, a sorceress, Geralt's companion and, up until Foltest's assassination, royal advisor, then travel to a trading post named Flotsam, in search of the kingslayer._
> 
> If you haven't seen the game intro and interrogation scene - [here it is.](http://youtu.be/wC_jIjjQiJ4)

‘If it really were you who killed _him_ …’

There is no glove on Roche’s hand, when he traces the whip marks on the witcher's back with his fingers — the contact isn’t that rough, but the tingling sensation of the touch reveals the echoes of pain in every single wound. The witcher reflexively tries to shrink away.

There’s nowhere to.

‘…then your morning schedule includes public being gutted…’

The witcher flinches and thinks — extremely out of place — that Roche should be introduced to Dandelion. They both have equally dexterous hands; the difference is that one virtuoso plays the lute, while another accurately feels all pain points.

‘…skinned, and a slow, painful death at the dirty scaffold’.

Roche stops. He is standing in front of the witcher, watching the traces of blood on his fingertips, pensively, as if he’s just noticed the bloodstain on his hands. For a moment Geralt wonders if Roche is going to lick them clean. The thought is rather wild even to his mind, which is clearly tired of dull pain in tortured limbs.

‘Roche…’ The witcher’s voice sounds hoarse and drained. ‘I wonder if you are really just a sadist… or you’re that afraid of me without these shackles’.

The Temerian slowly raises his completely blank gaze. _He is going to strike,_ the witcher thinks. _He is going to smack me now, lazily, without any swing, with that heavy spiky back side of his glove — with his skills that would be enough to break a jaw…_

He wonders if he cares at all.  
He’s almost amused by the fact that he frankly doesn’t know.

Instead of strike Roche takes Geralt's chin with his bloodied fingers — which is not exactly painful, but uncomfortable enough. What makes Geralt almost noticeably flinch is not the touch, but the cold and heavy stare. Thanks any god, witchers’ eyes have vertical pupils that make their expression almost unreadable for normal humans — Geralt’s answering stare doesn’t give away his true reactions at the moment.

Geralt is honest only with his own self. And he is honestly… no, not scared; _intrigued._

‘Look, I want to be understood correctly, _witcher_ ’, Temerian scout’s words are dangerously calm and barely audible. ‘You are in chains. You are totally dependent on the whims of your jailers. And you might not survive through this night. Is that clear?’

Roche’s hold is as firm as bloody iron, so Geralt blinks instead of nodding.

‘The shackles on your left hand are sawn’, Roche says, even more quietly, almost in a whisper. ‘I bet you noticed that from the very beginning of our talk. Frankly speaking, you could break my neck and try to escape at any moment…’ Geralt unwillingly makes a sharp intake of breath; he did notice. He did think of the mentioned way of escape. The scout leans in, and his voice is no louder than breathing, when he continues: ‘Just in case, I want you to know that I appreciate the fact that you did not even attempt to attack me. Changing of the guard’s in an hour, the rest is up to you… Ves, take him away!’

The last phrase is spoken louder, and the Temerian pulls away from the witcher, gaze calm and cold, voice steady and certain. That’s the way Geralt remembers him when he’s being dragged to his cell.

What the witcher does not know is that after Geralt's long gone Roche is standing alone in the empty corridor, silent, serious, staring at his own blood-stained fingers. He neither tries to taste the blood, nor to wipe it off. The man doesn’t realize how long this lasts, yet nobody dares to disturb him.

His eyes are too blank and distant. That’s enough to scare the jailers away.

~*~

The witcher hisses.

‘Stop jerking’.

Roche’s voice is quiet and steady.

‘Almost finished. I hope you didn’t kill everyone at your ingenious escape route?..’

The witcher snorts. He doesn’t really want to answer. To his mind, being unshackled and out of the cell is already fine — and he takes as an extra gift from higher powers the fact, that the commander of Temerian special forces, sleeves rolled up, meticulously cleans the traces of lash strokes on his back. Up to this point Geralt used to think that Roche’s accuracy of hand movements would fit only to the process of torture.

It turns out that being wrong is sometimes nice.

‘Fine, done there, turn around’, Roche sighs laconically, putting a bloody rag in the tub with flushed water as the witcher shifts his position. ‘So, where do we go from here…’

‘You seriously don’t have to do all this by yourself’.

‘Sure — if I seriously don’t care about the result’, responds the Temerian absent-mindedly, examining the marks of the shackles on the witcher’s wrists. The touch of the fingers, too familiar with heavy arms, is surprisingly gentle. ‘In case you’re wondering, _that_ was sarcasm’.

Geralt does not smile, because in Vernon’s case even sarcasm sounds pretty much deadly serious. Roche’s gaze is sharp and emotionless, as he examines the witcher — abrasions on the wrists, bruises, some kind of already half-healed long cut close to the neck... ‘You’re bleeding’, Vernon states calmly, gently pulling his hand to remove the dark drops from the witcher’s bruised lower lip.

At that very moment Geralt feels something akin to the shiver from his medallion’s reaction to monsters’ presence.

Roche stops in the middle of movement, halfway to the witcher; stops abruptly, as though he has just begun to realize that he’s doing something outstandingly wrong. A living creature very rarely freezes as suddenly and _completely_ , as Vernon Roche does — stopping dead, still as stone, without any trace of emotion in his eyes.

‘Sorry’, Roche says quietly, withdrawing his hand.

Geralt knows that he is _so_ going to expose himself as an idiot; but he still asks: ‘Should you be?’

For a fraction of second Roche looks completely lost — the chance to behold this view is worth not only a prison break, but a severe fight with all intelligence units of the Kingdoms of the North. The extreme, sheer, _absolute_ lack of understanding is emanating from Vernon almost visibly. Geralt thinks that he could have felt such powerful emotion in his skin and bones — but he can already see the depths of this insane mixture of uncertainty, shock, disbelief, and something close to fear, all deep in the darkness of Roche’s dilated pupils.

The realization sends unwanted shivers down his bruised spine. Geralt is awfully well aware of the simple fact: it is far easier to be an unreasonable sadist bastard in the service of the dead king, than to give a frank answer to the question asked.

Should Roche be sorry — _for what exactly?_  
For the loyalty to the dead monarch? For taking care of the witcher’s wounds? For the unconscious need to help, to cease the pain?  
For avoiding the caressing touch, that almost happened?..

Practice shows, that Geralt is underestimating the man again. It takes the Temerian lesser than few seconds to regain the composure and calm look. Neither his voice, nor his hands are trembling, when he says, almost indifferently: ‘Think of me as of a dead man walking’. And leans in, firmly grabbing the grinning medallion to destroy all Geralt's chances to shrink away, and kisses the broken lips.

This is the frankest answer to all the questions, and it doesn’t really matter that most of them hasn’t been asked yet. In fact, it’s so shockingly honest, that Geralt kisses the Temerian back – almost automatically, on pure instinct, before he starts thinking about how wrong that must be. For his damned witcher’s life – Geralt has sincerely no idea of how the fingers, trained for war and torture, manage to disturb not a single scratch on his badly beaten body, touching the points that cause anything but pain. He seriously cannot tell how the unexpectedly hungry touch on his lips can cause not the throbbing sting he’s almost used to, but the unfamiliar tingle of anticipation. The craving underneath the lasting kiss somehow feels like a suppressed longing to bite and tastes as a strange kind of exquisitely poisonous painkiller.

It turns out that being wrong _several times in a row_ is nicer than he supposed.

When they break apart for a second, breath uneven, heartbeat unsteady, Geralt realizes that he’s no longer being held by his medallion chain. He can back off, recoil from the contact, any moment. It takes him lesser than a blink of an eye to sod off the thoughts: shattered calmness of one certain Temerian, from the slightest trembling of his hands and up to the wild emptiness of his dark eyes, is priceless. The witcher leans in just to make the strange mixture of sensations last longer — for a second, for a minute, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just gasping for air, crashing lips, tasting blood without either thinking or feeling pain.

It’s just… feeling alive.  
Not _well_ , not _right_ , — but very much _alive._

The sight of Vernon Roche, licking blood from his lips, is a fine scenario for a piece of gorgeous nightmare from incubus’ collection. Geralt can’t help snorting at this idea. The thought remains persistent even as the Temerian holds back and visibly tries to recollect his self-control.

‘Vernon…’

Roche’s still slightly wild gaze jerks up to meet the witcher’s sneer.

‘…are you sure you’re not a vampire?’

When the Temerian finally speaks out, his voice is soft, polite and very calm.

‘If that’s the only question that disturbs you at this very moment… would you be so kind to _shut the fuck up?..’_

‘You sound rather… emotional. For a dead man’, Geralt grins.

‘Dead ones have nothing to lose’, Roche observes flatly. ‘I believe you can get the idea of being an experienced hangman who’s been pretty much dead for the most part of his life… Now stop that smiling’.

‘Why?’

‘It’s bloody distracting, that’s why. And there are still wounds for me to take care of’.

‘You don’t have to…’

‘Been there, Geralt’, Roche sighs. And goes on slowly, carefully choosing the words. ‘Let’s put it this way… I want to help. I want to think certain things over. And I’m totally doomed, because I know I’ll start kissing you again, if you talk about it, and Triss is so going to rip my head off…’

‘Vernon?’

The Temerian freezes again, meeting the stare of inhuman eyes.

‘I think I’m about to repeat your request on shutting up’, the witcher states.

Roche’s answering stare is lacking something Geralt has always noticed there before. Something is absent, something that made Vernon’s gaze fit in the description of a “dead man walking”, something too obvious to put a finger on immediately, something so simple that…

‘Thank you’, Vernon says quietly, returning his attention on the greased wounds on the witcher’s wrists.

Desperation. That’s the thing, that’s absent.  
Geralt allows himself a sneaky smile, while Roche’s not looking.  
Triss is so going to rip _both of their heads_ off…


End file.
